No 155: It is called SPACE for a reason….

I am not a real man. I can’t fix shelves, I don’t know (or care) how the combustion engine works, and I have no opinion on the best driving route from Basingstoke to Cheltenham on a Sunday afternoon. I have long been content to lack these  masculine traits. However, sometimes just sometimes my failings come back to haunt me. As the Assistant Scout Leader for my local troop I was recently asked to lead some badge work. I find backwoods survival skills frustrating (‘just use a match!’) and I am hopeless at anything that requires hand/eye coordination (such as archery). This significantly narrows my field of badges.

Earlier this year I had successfully enthralled the troop with my one party piece: a session on water and wastewater treatment (see Notes 123 and 124). Unfortunately the troop foolishly concluded this meant I possessed hidden depths of knowledge. My protestations to the contrary were seen as modesty. If only they knew the truth. Mrs Clark could have told them just how useless I am.

Faced with the challenge of finding something that would engage and educate yet not be too practical I eventually decided upon the Astronomy badge. Over the course of the next 5 weeks I will attempt to engage twenty-five 10 – 14 year olds in the majesty of the universe. Week 1 went surprisingly well.

In order to see how much the children knew already I invited each patrol to act out how the sun, earth and moon interact with each other. With the possible exception of when the Earth kicked the Moon because his flailing arms were getting too close, their basic level of knowledge was higher than I had expected. They could even name all the planets (obligatory schoolboy laughter at Uranus). Perhaps most worrying was when I asked the other three other leaders to act out the ‘right answer’. They ended up in a confused huddle in the corner of the room. On the plus side between them they could cook a delicious three course meal in the Arctic with just two pieces of wood and a bag of broccoli.  

Next, using a football (200mm diameter) as the sun, I got the scouts to select from an array of smaller spherical objects (ping pong balls, tennis balls, etc) those which they felt best represented each of the planets in our solar system. As expected everyone chose objects too large. There was a lovely jaw drop moment when I revealed that, on this scale, the earth was just a tiny bead (2mm across) and our biggest planet, Jupiter, was nothing more than a small cherry tomato (16mm in diameter).

My final exercise was to give them a sense of the massive distances across space. Taking turns each child placed the Bead Earth and the Tomato Jupiter at appropriate distances from our Football Sun. With each attempt I confirmed if they were better or worse than the previous guess. Inevitably we ended up outside. With our football sun balanced precariously on the gate we started walking up the road. At 21 meters we positioned our Earth in orbit. It was another 185m before the Cherry Tomato was finally positioned correctly. Had we wanted to place Neptune it would have involved another half kilometre of walking. Our solar system really is huge.

As a final question I asked the scouts where, on this scale, would our next nearest star (Alpha Centuri) be? The guesses came thick and fast. In the High Street? By the train station? Eventually one of the more exuberant children who has a natural tendency to misbehave and is invariably being chastised for being disruptive, chirped up with the biggest distance he could imagine: FINLAND! Imagine his delight at learning he was the nearest. On the scale where our sun is a football, Alpha Centuri would be 5200km away.

Next week: Telescopes!

These Notes and previous editions can be found at http://notesfrompiers.blogspot.co.uk/

No 154: Today I was a Moroccan research scientist. Tomorrow I will be a Spaniard.

Late last Friday my phone rang. It was my good friend Frank Rogalla, Head of Innovation at Aqualia in Spain. He sounded agitated.  ‘Are you going to the IWA Congress in Brisbane next week? Can you do me a favour?’ As it happens I was just boarding a plane in SE Asia for Australia where I was scheduled to spend a couple of days at the Congress. ‘Of course’ I replied, somewhat foolishly.

Frank is the leading a glorious research project investigating whether it is possible generate energy from wastewater by growing microalgae and then feeding the harvested algae into an anaerobic digester. The project started in the laboratory back in 2010, has worked its way through pilot and prototype testing, and there is now a 2 hectare demonstration scale site, complete with a 2300m3 digester, being constructed in Southern Spain.

It is a fantastic project, involving Aqualia (Spain), the Univ of Southampton (UK), the Fraunhofer Institute (Germany), BDI (Austria), Hygear (the Netherlands) and, slightly left field, Volkswagen (Germany). Two papers were due to be presented at the IWA Congress but for various last-minute reasons neither speaker could make it. Could I, Frank asked, step in and help?

Now what I know about algae can be written on the back of a matchbox. Or rather, what I knew about algae last Friday could be written on a matchbox. A crash course over the weekend (what else would one want to do when faced with a sunny weekend in beautiful Brisbane?), combined with a couple of calls with Frank brought my knowledge to a level where I felt I might just about do justice to the hard work done by others and (perhaps more importantly) not look a complete fool.

My back up plan, much like the one I use every day, was to resort to egotistical showmanship if things got a bit sticky.

So today I was Dr Zouhayr Arbib, a distinguished Moroccan research scientist. I presented his work, which shows that you can indeed generate lots of energy using their method. Rather than consuming 0.5kw of power to treat a m3 of sewage you can generate 3kw. That is truly impressive. I wallowed in the glory that came from the audience and even managed to field the (8!) questions, subtly choosing to talk about the biogas generation part of the project (which I know and understand) rather than the algae harvesting (which I don’t).

Tomorrow I will be Dr Ignacio de Godas and I will be presenting his work. I am particularly looking forward to explaining the slide that has the following equation on it:

My back-up strategy may need to be more refined than that of today. Adopting a bit of distracting showmanship isn’t going to be enough. Instead I shall assume a strong Spanish accent, possibly with a Catalonian lisp. I will be fiery and passionate and act in accordance with such a sweepingly Mediterranean stereotype that no one will dare ask me anything difficult. Wish me luck. 

No 153: Water or Films? Which gives the best return? Maybe just write a children’s book instead.

I don’t normally mix with people from the film industry, but this week was an exception. Yesterday I had coffee with a man who has managed to forge a career investing in the somewhat quirky mix of blockbuster movies and, separately, water technologies.  Indeed, the meeting my friend was having directly after our meeting was with Barbara Broccoli, daughter of Albert Broccoli and the current producer of the James Bond films. One of the many interesting facts I gleaned from him was that Idris Elba is ‘a shoe in’ for the next 007 role. You heard it here first.

I couldn’t help but ask my new-found friend which gave the best returns to him as an investor: water technology or films? Before sharing his response I should tell you that his water technology investments include a rather clever sensor for the water network that provides early warning signals of contamination. It is very neat and has applications in a variety of countries and industries.

In answering he looked me straight in the eyes and without hesitation or embarrassment confidently asserted that he has ‘not made a penny’ out of his water investments. A little bit of me died.

Other celebrity moments from this week include me having breakfast with David Beckham. And when I say ‘having breakfast’ what I actually mean is I was sitting in a café having a breakfast meeting with the CEO of PA Consulting, Alan Middleton when David entered the café behind me. Alan, quick as a flash, got out his phone and managed to capture a picture of me with the sporting hero (see attached). David might not remember meeting me, but I will never forget our special moment together. Last night I shared the photo with the youngsters in the scout group I help run. They already see me as a hero (obviously) and this photo of my celebrity connections merely confirmed my status as someone they would love to emulate. (As a complete aside, one of the children last night guessed my age as 26. I felt superb for all of 10 minutes, until I realised that if you are 13 then 26 is probably seen as positively ancient. It was their way of simply saying ‘you are very very old’)

Back to my water/film investor friend, I asked him how his film investments were going. He was more positive about these, saying he typically made a 10-15% return. He then gazed into the distance and said, somewhat wistfully ‘I have actually started writing a children’s book. I think that is what will make me really happy’.

Personally, I am sticking with water technology. 

No 152: My urine is green. That can’t be good.

This week I have been in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a city where size matters. They have the biggest flag pole in the world (170m), the tallest water fountain in the world (260m) and are currently constructing the tallest building in the world, Jeddah Towers. At 1km high Jeddah Towers will be just 49cm taller than the current tallest building in the world (the Burj Khalifa in Dubai). If you are going to spend $5bn then you really don’t want to be ‘the second tallest’ so those extra few centimetres truly matter. We drove past the construction site (see photo below). It doesn’t look overly impressive at first glance but look closely and you get a sense of the scale; those tiny objects on the side of the picture are massive cranes. See also attached the artists impression of the final structure. Oh yes indeed. Jeddah is a city where size matters.

Towers in Aug 2016                                            Artists Impression of final Towers

We are about 10 miles from Mecca and, as luck would have it, our trip coincided with the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage. It was suggested that we could perhaps visit the holy site disguised in a burka. We sensibly rejected this offer on cultural sensitivity grounds. Also my colleague, Dutchman Erik Driessen, is 7 foot tall and likely to attract attention. Whilst abandoning him to explain himself to the Saudi authorities would be mildly amusing it would have created unpleasant amounts of paperwork.

If you head 60km south of Jeddah into the desert you will come to an Industrial Zone. Between here and the Yemen border is 500 miles of hot, unforgiving desert. This is where we have spent the week, undertaking a technical audit of, yes you guessed it, the biggest soft drinks facility in the world. It is run by a fantastically dedicated team from Sibco, one of the largest Pepsi franchisees in the world, and it is, quite simply, staggeringly enormous. The $0.5bn+ plant is going through commissioning but when fully operational will consume over 500,000,000 litres of water every hour. A giant sized lorry packed with 7Up, Pepsi, and all the other delicious Pepsi brands will leave the site every 4 minutes (there is a taxi-rank type car park for 100 such lorries). The sheer scale of it is awe-inspiring. It knocks spots off the big flagpole, bigger fountain and biggest building as a tourist attraction.

It is however ridiculously hot. Step outside the air conditioned office and, literally within seconds, you are pouring with sweat. After just 3 minutes you are soaked to the skin in your own perspiration. Our days have involved spending a couple of blisteringly hot hours on-site, returning to the safety of our temporary office to write up our notes/re-hydrate/dry. We then repeat this until the day ends.  Shirts dry quite quickly but once your underpants are soaked through they tend to stay wet all day long. Having constantly wet nether-regions is a special feeling I have not encountered for perhaps 45 years.

Some water issues are common the world over (leakage, energy control, sludge). Some are region specific (unusually high manganese levels in the Red Sea feed water, climatic conditions which cause rapid corrosion of all metal components). Everyone we have met, from the local desalination operators Sawaco to all Sibco staff/subcontractors has welcomed us and is working tirelessly to get the facility up and running on time. After all, there are 28 million thirsty Saudi’s out there and they need their Pepsi.

Above the urinals is a little sign with colour chart for you to compare with your urine. It ranges from light yellow (‘good’) to dark yellow (‘drink more’) to green (‘drink more now’) to red (‘Something is seriously wrong. Find a hospital and find a psychiatrist’). No matter how much I drink I can’t seem to shift from light green. I feel (and no doubt look) like a shrivelled prune. Yet our main client contact, Duncan Munro, has been here almost 3 years and looks suspiciously younger than he did when he worked in London for Fullers Brewery.

Perhaps it’s a Soft drink vs Beer thing? Perhaps it is due to the sunshine? I hope not, either way I am in trouble. Next week I am on holiday in Southwold, UK. I intend to spend the week enjoying the balmy 20 degree C temperatures, sitting on the painful gravel beach next to the deliciously grey and cold North Sea drinking copious amount of the local Adnams ale. It is a classic Englishman’s holiday. I might not end the week looking any younger but my urine will at least be back to normal.

These Notes, and previous editions, can be found at http://notesfrompiers.blogspot.co.uk/

No 151: Dance like no one is watching

For the past week I have been in Singapore. I have not been here alone. About 20,000 other people from across the global water sector are also here as it has been Singapore International Water Week (SIWW). With me on this trip are colleagues from Isle Australia, Isle Asia and Isle Europe. Son No 2 is also here, having foolishly returned home from university early. He is enjoying the life-affirming experience of zero-contract hours employment with his father. Child labour is so much more acceptable when it is kept in the family.

Isle has been here in force because we were responsible for delivering the TechXchange and the Innovation Pavilion. The TechXchange was a 1 day technical conference for 250 delegates that formally kicked off SIWW last Sunday. The Innovation Pavilion was a designated area within the (awe inspiringly massive) exhibition hall where c20 novel and disruptive technologies from around the world were being showcased. As outlined in Note 149, Isle had boldly designed an event that included an array of innovative and daring modifications to the usual conference format. These ideas had seemed inspired during the planning phase but as we got ever closer to kick-off these same ideas appeared wildly ambitious and destined to fail. Panic is an interesting emotion. It doesn’t bring out the best in me.

With just hours to go we found ourselves with an array of last minute hiccups. Key note speakers with delayed flights and lost luggage is one of those problems you can’t do much about. My offer to buy a spare pair of knickers was politely declined. I can’t think why. Is it not charming to have a strange man buy your underclothes? (I may have lost track of the fine line between what is acceptable and what is just plain creepy). Anyway, my fears were misplaced. It all eventually fell neatly into place.

The TechXchange flowed like a dream. The interactive debate session, complete with a real-time monitor showing which side was winning, had the audience spell-bound. Almost 2000 votes were submitted to the Voting App during the 45 minute debate period, with the winning side chopping and changing as the debate progressed. Slightly worryingly whenever I spoke my side seemed to lose votes. There is a lesson in there somewhere. This was followed by a high-energy Innovation Competition, which borrowed heavily from X factor. We stayed just about on the right side of any copyright claims. I can confirm that at the time of writing no threatening letters have yet been received from Mr Cowell.  

Our post-event celebrations somehow culminated in us gathering en masse in a nightclub in downtown Singapore. The beer, the live band, the great company and the relief that things had not blown up in our faces meant that we spent Sunday night dancing with abandon. Until this week I have never been ‘out clubbing’, let alone stayed out until the clubs close at 3am. Returning to my hotel room to find Son No 2 with a ‘And what time do you call this?’ look on his face is humbling, but not enough to stop you doing it again. And again.

Such was the success of SIWW that as the week progressed, so did our celebrations. We tried the various delights that Singapore has to offer, including a 4 hour karaoke session where I discovered both that Son No 2 is a rapper and that the future Water Minister for a local Asian country (name retained to protect her) is living reincarnation of Carol Carpenter. Our planned evening of salsa dancing was abandoned after just 2 minutes. Having seen the skill and coordination required to earn a place on the dance floor we decided to return, like dogs to proverbial vomit, to our beloved nightclub and dance until they shut the place.

On one occasion I looked around the dance floor to realise that there was just myself, Professor David Lewis (CEO for Muradel, an Australian tech company that can convert sludge to crude oil), Mr Wolfgang Vogl (GM for VWM Technology from Vienna, they have an on-line monitor that won the above mentioned innovation competition) and Adam Lovell (CEO for the Water Services Association of Australia). With a collective age north of 200 the four of us ripped up that dance floor. The faces of the beautiful young things standing on the side-lines were captivated by our skill and prowess. Dad-dancing is a talent every young person aspires to possess and we were there to teach. Despite what you might hear from other sources, they were not watching us with shame and pity. It was envy at our gay abandon. Why else would they eventually join us such that we became a throbbing mass of human energy, pulsating as one to the rhythm.  

SIWW held its Closing Dinner last night and the exodus from the city began. There was a feeling  that SIWW had provided a brief respite from a world in ever-increasing financial, political or environmental turmoil. Delegates returning to Britain for example are going back to a country with a different Prime Minister from that who was in power when we left. This week has served to remind us of some of the truly great things happening across the water sector. Everyone celebrates in their own unique and special way. We chose to do it by dancing; dancing with complete and utter abandon. Dance like no one is watching. It is truthfully life affirming (and I am told that with good therapy your children will eventually recover from the mental damage inflicted). 

This blog and previous editions can be found at: http://notesfrompiers.blogspot.co.uk/